How to Manage Inactive Subscribers – Without Hitting Delete

Let me ask you a question: What do you think is the most prevalent fear email marketers face today?

Not being able to get people to subscribe? Or maybe that they are boring people to death with their emails?

For me, it is the fear that I’m putting in all this hard work into something that people ignore. I’m talking about open email rates here. I spend hours or days writing up something I feel excited about only to find it not connecting with my list.

My stomach drops every time I notice a significant decrease in people I’ve managed to engage with my latest email. I’m sure you get the same gut-wrenching feeling when that happens, too.

It used to be a lot worse. My lists were sloppy, at best, and I didn’t do much in terms of managing them. If you’re the same, it pains me to inform you that you are leaving money on the table.

The reason is two-fold:

1 – Not managing your email list can lead to a bad reputation with the ISPs. A lot of non-opens result in a lower reputation score, and when you hit rock-bottom your emails go straight to the junk folder – or as I like to call it, email marketing suicide folder.

2 -Some of those inactives can be re-engaged and brought back to the fold. A carefully thought out strategy can yield great success but your approach has to be somewhat tweaked if you want it to pay off.

Now, the usual course of action is simply to purge your lists and delete all inactive subscribers. Marketers usually do this after six to twelve months, depending on their email frequency:

-High-frequency senders delete after six months – the offer is not seasonal

While this is a prudent course of action, it only takes care of problem number one – you’re safeguarding your reputation with the ISPs but can lose a good chunk of your list in the process.

But what about the money you’re leaving on the table? I’d like to propose a different approach, one that resulted in higher revenues in my case. It takes a bit more effort – not much, I swear! – but it pays off nicely.

Inactives Have Your Money

Well, some of them do. And they are willing to spend it with you. Your first step is to categorize those inactives so you get a better picture of what you’re dealing with. This is how I’ve tackled this issue.

1. They were never active in the first place

Ditch them. They signed up by mistake or someone used their email address to sign up.

It can also be that they use this as a secondary or tertiary email and they’ve simply forgotten about it or they opted in while you were running a giveaway and never gave it another thought.

Whatever the reason, it’s going to take too long to investigate and you can regard these subscribers as a high-risk-low-gain type so it’s best not to lose any sleep over them.

2. Past customers

These are the subscribers that made a purchase at one point in time but have since gone inactive, both as subscribers and as customers.

Since they did need your product or service at one point in time you can consider them moderate-risk-moderate gain. Put them on a separate mailing list titled ‘re-engagement’ and devise a plan on how to get through to them again.

I recommend sending a very honest email to check out why they’ve stopped converting or otherwise engaging with you. Write a clear subject line, something in the lines of ‘Hey, we miss you and want you back!’ – of course, feel free to get more creative with that.

I usually send an incentive to make them more inclined to stay in and to give them a good reason to buy again. Offer a discount on your service or product, free shipping, or an e-book they can download that has a lot of great information they’ve shown interest in in the past.

Also, offer a visible unsubscribe button to those who are willing to opt-out right away. It’s important to keep this list as clean as possible because you want to move all those addresses back to your ‘active subscriber’ list eventually.

3. Current customers

These are subscribers that you know are converting right now. They are low-risk-high-gain and it is advisable to stick with them always. Usually, this means that they only need a quick reminder to give you their money and sometimes an unread message from you in their inbox is all that is necessary.

However, if they are converting without reading your emails, imagine what you could accomplish for your brand if you managed to turn them into evangelists for your cause.

I recommend moving them to a third list titled ‘converting inactives’. They obviously don’t need any coaxing to buy from you but you can still upsell or cross-sell them with ease if you put your mind to it.

Send them targeted content that is relevant to their purchase. If they bought your product or service, send them tips on how to use it, or something titled ‘I Bet You Didn’t Know You Can Use Product X for this!’

It might be wise to offer them an incentive to spread the word. After all, they have a mailing list of their own and friends that might be interested in what you are selling. If you can offer them a discount for referrals then an email titled ‘Get 20% Off Your Next Purchase!’ That will get them to interact with your email and might land you an extra customer or two.

With a bit of effort and planning, a lot of those inactives will move back to the original lists they came from.

It’s been a few months since I’ve transitioned to this approach and I have to tell you, the results are there. First off, my main lists are showing better results – actually, they are showing accurate results, give or take 5 %, and I worry a lot less now.

Also, it’s now easier to pinpoint where I need to make an extra effort in an attempt to re-engage with my inactive subscribers and what approach to take.

It takes a bit more work, but I guarantee that you will be seeing more activity and conversions if you try this out. Are you willing to give it a go?

Or do you have a system of your own in place? Make sure to drop by the comments section and let me know.

About The Author

Thank you for reading! As a full-time Online Entrepreneur with more than 15
years of experience I am painfully aware of how much Internet clutter we’re all
swimming in on a daily basis. The Web is a veritable ocean of often conflicting
information. I’ve learned a lot in my 15 years of navigating those waters and
I’m learning more every day! My blog documents all my successes, challenges, and
mistakes – at least you’ll learn how to avoid the pitfalls that plagued me. Some
of the advice I dole out there is worth gold.
So stop by my blog and let me
know how you unwind, I’d love to hear it. Besides running
Multiple Businesses online, and spending time with my wife and four children, I
am also passionate about Spirituality and
Self-Realization. My spiritual practices helps me understand my role in this
"short life" and to create meaningful connection with people around me. If you
resonate with this,
I invite you
to connect with me.

What a timely post and I loved the strategies that you have shared. Reading this post, I am off to use some of the strategies on my list. Thanks for the share and have an awesome week.Ikechi Awazie recently posted…Why You Shouldn’t Throw Any of Yourself Away

Yes, that is a real problem and I have known many small businesses take a nose dive because of this email deliveribility problem. You should ask them if they are still interested in being a subscriber once in a while before deleting. Thank for your feedback Donna!

I don’t like to delete people on my list unless I have a reason. Reaching out to them and asking if they still want emails from me works great. When I’ve done that in the past, some write back and tell me they never received an email from me.

AHA…I went to their spam box even though I tell them to “white list” me. he he he
I do find that many respond and then find me in spam and are grateful that I reached out.

A/B testing is great, and if done the right way can practically increase the results overnight. Truth is most marketers do not take the time to do a test when they send to their in-house lists (since we are talking about in-house list subscribers on this post.)

In a many ways, since the communication to your email list subscribers are informal, and since we send emails to them regularly we kind of know what they respond to. So A/B testing to your own list is a waste of time in my book.

However A/B testing is important when we are reaching a warm market with a new product. This is just my opinion. Thanks for the comment Yogesh!

I like the idea of re-working your list to find the different levels of activity and engagement. Then put that info to use by contacting your different levels of subscribers and trying to upgrade them, or encourage them to unsubscribe.

Either way, you will be making your list more responsive to your mailings and will improve your optin rate. This will result in a larger percentage of your emails getting delivered and opened.David Merrill 101 recently posted…You Can Have A Profitable Online Business

Hi Abe,
Very informative post, I like your suggestion to send a very honest email to check out why they stopped opening your emails.
And yes the inactive have to go 🙂
Thanks for sharing!Emi Koulev recently posted…Using Instagram For Business

Hi Emi, yes Email marketing and hosting can get very expensive for larger lists as we are charged for the number of subscribers. “Deleting” in active subscribers is the best way to get more deliveribility and response! Thanks for your comments!